The Effects of Violent Video Games on Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior

While video game manufactures are
quick to deny the possibility that violent video games can have a negative
impact on children and adults, a wealth of scientific research exists which
points clearly to the conclusion that violent video games do indeed have a
negative impact on children, adults, and society. While it is easy to point
fingers and note that many troubled teens who have gone on shooting sprees in places
like Littleton, Colorado, Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas were all
avid players of violent video games such as Doom and Grand Theft Auto, skeptics
claim that this connection is merely anecdotal. However, such anecdotal
evidence is backed up by numerous empirical investigations, both experimental
and correlational in design, carried out over the last two decades in both laboratory
and real world settings.

Early research exploring the impact
of violent video games on behavior was rooted in the findings of a much older
literature exploring the impact of violent media such as television and movies
on behavior. This research points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that
exposure to violent media leads to increases in aggression and decreases in
prosocial (helping) behavior in children who are exposed to it, both in the
short term immediately after viewing violent material, and in the long term
after repeated viewing of such material. Though this relationship is not so
simple as to say that exposure to violent programming causes all children to
become violent criminals, partaking of violent media initiates a complicated
series of interactions between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which can lead
children down a dangerous path to delinquency and criminality later in life
(Bushman & Huesmann, 2001, also, see Husemann, 1994 for a review).

Violent video games, however, are a
relatively recent media phenomenon compared to violent television and movies.
These games began to emerge in the early 90’s when titles such as Mortal
Kombat, Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom became available. Today, games which involve
inflicting violence on others, including lifelike characters which bleed and
scream, remain incredibly popular and widely available. However, the effects of
these games on violent behavior are likely even more pronounced than the
effects of viewing violent television content on behavior. This is because
videogames ask the player to assume the role of a hero who commits violent acts.
Previous research has shown that when people identify with the perpetrator of
aggression, they are more likely to commit subsequent acts of aggression and to
feel less empathy toward victims of violence (Leyens & Picus, 1973; Perry
& Perry, 1976). Further, rather than reinforcing the positive consequences
of violence vicariously through the perspective of an actor as occurs in movies
and television, violent video games reward players immediately and personally
through the distribution of more points, the unlocking of new characters, and
exciting cut scenes, making the perceived rewards of violence seem more real than
is the case with other violent media. While
for a time some argued that engaging in a minor form of aggressive behavior
(such as punching a punching bag, or later playing video games) could relieve
aggressive impulses by helping people to “cool off,” research has not supported
this notion, and has actually demonstrated that behaving aggressively in one
context only increases the likelihood of behaving aggressively in another
(Geen, Stonner, & Shope, 1975).

Early experimental research
exploring the impact of video games on behavior conducted in the late 1990’s
produced relatively mixed results. This is because these studies failed to
control for factors such as how exciting violent games were compared to
controls, the difficulty of the games, and how enjoyable the games used were (Griffiths, 1998). Modern
studies controlling for these factors, however, have found more conclusive
results. For example, Anderson
and Dill (2003) found that college students who played violent video games had
committed more aggressive and non-aggressive delinquent acts and also had lower
GPA’s. In a follow up experimental study, they also found that after playing a
violent video game, participants were more able to access aggressive thoughts
and were more likely to aggress against another participant. While it is has
been empirically supported that individuals who are more predisposed toward
aggression are more likely to gravitate toward violent video games, this by no
means fully explains the results of such studies.

The study described above was one
of 35 similar studies which were included in a meta analysis conducted by
Anderson and Bushman (2003). Meta analysis is
a statistical technique which allows researchers to combine the results of many
different experiments in order to generate an overall conclusion about the
impact of a factor on another factor. Anderson and Bushman used this technique
to show that the experimental evidence available at the time clearly indicated
that exposure to video game violence was clearly associated with heightened
tendencies toward aggression. This effect, when combine across studies, was
more powerful than the effect of regular condom use on HIV prevention (Weller,
1993). This effect appears to primarily stem from increases in aggressive
thoughts, as well as an increase in aggressive feelings. Such effects are seen
in men, women, children, and across both experimental and real world settings.

The results of such studies are
taken as support for the General Aggression Model (GAM), which proposes that
factors related to an individual such as personality or socioeconomic status
AND exposure to violent media such as television and video games, combine with
situational factors such as conflicts with peers or difficulty in school to
create scenarios in which violence is a possible outcome. A combination of
these factors affects the degree to which a person will think violent thoughts,
feel aggressive feelings, and become aroused enough to act on such feelings.
These factors in turn lead a person to make either carefully thought out
decisions or impulsive decisions, which can potentially result in aggressive
action.

While this might sound like a lot
of steps to go through before a person makes a decision, seemingly trivializing
the impact of violent video games on action, violent video games are
potentially dangerous because they affect the process of decision making at
many places along the way. Individuals who score high on general trait
irritability and aggressive personality, factors which are often linked to violent
behavior (Anderson, 1997; Bushman, 1995), are particularly likely to play
violent video games. Playing video games in general leaves people feeling more
aroused and more aggressive than not playing video games (Anderson & Dill,
2003). Through time spent playing violent video games, people form stable
hostile expectations, meaning that they are more likely to interpret ambiguous
situations as being threatening and to see violence as an appropriate response to
ambiguous situations (Bushman & Andeson, 2002; Uhlmann & Swanson,
2004).This means that in a conflict situation, such as during a disagreement
with peers or during a confrontation with an authority figure, people who have
spent considerable time playing violent video games are more likely to behave
aggressively than people who have not. This leads to the observed patterns in
which habitual players of violent video games get into more arguments with
teachers, more often become involved in physical fights, and do not perform as
well in school (Gentile, Lynch, Ruh Linder, & Walsh, 2002).

Thus, while it is perhaps still a
bit premature to say that violent video games are should be ban because they
are horribly deleterious to society, it is certainly worthwhile to advise that parents
be cautious about the games they allow their children and teens to play. While
there is no substitute for thoughtful analysis of the contents in any games ones
children play and open discussion about the themes and meanings of such games,
the ESRB rating system can be a useful tool for parents seeking to at least
minimally monitor their children’s gaming habits. Future research will further
elucidate the ways in which violent video games influence people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors, although until such time as an inarguable conclusion
can be reached, the exact impact of violent video games will remain a hot topic
of discussion.

Comments

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RichERich1175

7 years ago

I have wondered for some time if there has been a correlation between violent video games and violence in society. You article was extremely well-written and had a wealth of knowledge. Great work, bro.

almasi

7 years ago

Awesome hub.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence for out of it arise the issues of life.

I believe it is the parent's responsibility to guard the hearts of their children and by heart I mean their minds and emotions so that the issues you have mentioned above such as more arguments with teachers, more fights with peers and poor school performance do not arise because of what we have permitted to enter their innocent minds.

Therefore, I think parents have to do the protective censoring while shopping to keep the potentially (even if not yet proven guilty) substances, videos, games, books, etc away from our children.

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